The Siren Quotes

My brow still burns from the kiss of the queen; I have dreamed in the grotto where the siren swims . . . ~ Gerard De Nerval

I was lost in a hundred different worlds. ~ Kiera Cass

All my life I have been trained by that siren. Before I could walk I knew the siren meant death. It meant somehow the fences had been breached and the Unconsecrated were shuffling among us. It meant grab weapons, move to the platforms and pull up the ladders - even if it necessitated leaving the living behind.
Growing up, my mother used to tell me about how in the beginning, when her own great-great-great-grandmother was a child, that siren would wail almost constantly as the village was bombarded with the Unconsecrated. But then the fences has been fortified, the Guardians had formed and time had passed with the Unconsecrated dwindling to the point that I couldn't remember a time in the past few years when that siren had wailed and it had not been a drill. I know that in my life there have been breaches but I also know that I am very good at blocking out the memories that serve me no purpose. I can fear the Unconsecrated well enough without them. ~ Carrie Ryan

I try to avoid Twitter. I occasionally can't resist the siren call of email. ~ Diablo Cody

Were you hare when I was fox? ~ Tim Buckley

Maybe the siren was was a fire truck? Mercer couldn't see one anywhere, but like some bounding St. Bernard of the metaphysical, he couldn't quite let go of the belief that there must be an objective reality out there, beyond his own head. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

Admiring was one thing, but it was a bad idea to let my mind be affected so strongly by a stranger. ~ Kiera Cass

But the book! The siren song of the book! ~ Ellen Douglas

Angel of the Forsaken Hope
Wielder of the Sword of Wind and Obsidian
Slice the Algorithms from our Foe.

Mermaid Beneath the Seven Dancing Moons,
Cantress of the Siren Song,
Drown our Enemies in the Data-stream.

Nymph of the Logic Tree,
Child of the First Word,
Give our Antagonist to Grief. ~ Roger Zelazny

The perilous time for the most highly gifted is not youth. The holy sensibilities of genius - for all the sensibilities of genius are holy - keep their possessor essentially unhurt as long as animal spirits and the idea of being young last; but the perilous season is middle age, when a false wisdom tempts them to doubt the divine origin of the dreams of their youth; when the world comes to them, not with the song of the siren, against which all books warn us, but as a wise old man counselling acquiescence in what is below them. ~ Elizabeth P. Peabody

Think for a moment about an emergency siren. What is its purpose? The siren is an indication and a warning that something harmful is coming. If we hear it, we naturally panic. But what happens when they need to test the siren? What happens when it's just a drill to see how we will react? The test siren sounds exactly the same, but it is "only a test." Although it looks, sounds, and feels real, it is not. It is only a test. And we're reminded of that again and again throughout the test. This is exactly what Allah tells us about this life. It is going to look, sound, and feel very, very real. At times it's going to scare us. At times it's going to make us cry. At times it's going to make us flee, instead of standing firm - even more firm - in our places. But this life and everything in it is only a test. It is not actually real. And like that test of the emergency broadcast system; it is training us for what is real. ~ Yasmin Mogahed

Life is pointless. Love is pointless. And still, wouldn't I do every second of it all over again?"
"I'm guessing yes."
"Undoubtedly. Yes. ~ Kiera Cass

Sonechka, meanwhile, placid soul that she was - cocooned by the thousand volumes of her reading, lulled by the hazy murmurings of the Greek myths, the hypnotically shrill recorder fluting of the Middle Ages, the misty windswept yearning of Ibsen, the minutely detailed tedium of Balzac, the astral music of Dante, the siren song of the piercing voices of Rilke and Novalis, seduced by the moralistic despair of the great Russian writers calling out to the heart of heaven itself - this placid soul had no awareness that her great moment was at hand. ~ Lyudmila Ulitskaya

Adrift and unmoored, she had tried again and again to throw him a rope to save him from the raging waters. And now he no longer felt like a drowning man at sea. Nora ... the siren and the goddess, the ship and the wine-dark sea. She would either save him or end him. ~ Tiffany Reisz

Postmodernism entices us with the siren call of liberation and creativity, but it may be an invitation to intellectual and moral suicide. ~ Gertrude Himmelfarb

In Simon's voice, he heard the siren song of family – how it pulls you despite all sense; how it forces you to discard your convictions, your righteous selfhood, in favor of profound dependence. ~ Chloe Benjamin

The Gedalists were nearly run down by a Dodge truck on which two grand pianos had been loaded: two uniformed officers were playing, in unison, with gravity and commitment, the 1812 Overture of Tchaikowsky, while the driver wove among the wagons with brusque swerves, pressing the siren at full volume, heedless of the pedestrians in his way. ~ Primo Levi

If I can leave a single message with the younger generation, it is to lash yourself to the mast, like Ulysses if you must, to escape the siren calls of complacency and indifference. ~ Edward Kennedy

She snuggled close, nuzzling her hair beneath his chin. "Never leave me," she whispered back.
The siren chuckled sadly, the sound vibrating up through his chest and pleasantly against her ear. "But I must return to the sea every now and then or I will die." He sighed. "Some part of me believes it would be a good death. ~ Ash Gray

She's the kind of girl that songs should be written about, poems should be composed for, and books should be dedicated to. ~ Kiera Cass

I slid down in the seat and began to weep. I wept for her, for me, but mostly because the siren call of my first big story with a yellow border around it was more powerful than the call of fatherhood. ~ Joe McNally

History is the siren song of the soul. ~ Terence McKenna

At heart, I was still just a girl on the edge of life. ~ Kiera Cass

The siren soared again, closer at hand, and then, with no anticipatory roar and clamour, a dark and sinuous body curved into view against the shadows far down the high-banked track, and with no sound but the rush of the cleft wind and the clock like tick of the rails, moved towards the bridge - it was an electric train. Above the engine two vivid blurs of blue light formed incessantly a radiant crackling bar between them, which, like a spluttering flame in a lamp beside a corpse, lit for an instant the successive rows of trees and caused Gloria to draw back instinctively to the far side of the road. The light was tepid - the temperature of warm blood... The clicking blended suddenly with itself in a rush of even sound, and then, elongating in sombre elasticity, the thing roared blindly by her and thundered onto the bridge, racing the lurid shaft of fire it cast into the solemn river alongside. Then it contracted swiftly, sucking in its sound until it left only a reverberant echo, which died upon the farther bank. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

And no matter how crazy it seemed, I indulged in every adventure. ~ Kiera Cass

Whatever happened, I'd met my person, the one my soul connected to. ~ Kiera Cass

Slogan For Humanity (The Sonnet)

Let's slogan for humanity above the cacophony of politics.
Let's slogan all together for the people and not bookish morality.
Let's slogan for humanity above the drumbeats of bigotry.
Let's slogan for the souls in misery and not nationality.
Let's slogan for humanity above the foghorn of policies.
Let's slogan cause we are responsible, not cause we're aggressive.
Let's slogan for humanity above the siren of world peace.
Let's slogan being peace incarnate beyond all doctrines illusive.
Let's slogan for humanity above the noise of traditions.
Let's slogan all together trumping all worship of sects.
Let's slogan for humanity above the gunshots of authoritarianism.
Let's slogan as just, free and brave beings, not loyal subjects.
Awake and Arise my sisters and brothers to slogan for all of humankind.
We are the light and we are the might that's needed during this ominous tide. ~ Abhijit Naskar

There's always room for love. Even if it's as small as a crack in the door. ~ Kiera Cass

The frenzy with which much of the church busies herself with things peripheral to the kingdom in a frantic attempt by her own ingenuity and effort to make God's name holy or make his kingdom come is a sign that something is radically wrong. The church has lost connection with Christ, her living head; she has listened to the siren calls of this world; she has succumbed to the prevailing culture instead of what Christ Jesus created her to be. ~ Harold L. Senkbeil

I would never kiss you!" The siren's screech brought me back to the Everneath, and I drew away from Cole.
He had a devilish grin on his face, and he turned toward the siren. "I know. But the real Nik would - if it was to save my life." He looked back at me. "Hey, Nik. ~ Brodi Ashton

I may not have been born in the sea, but I was born to rule it.
I am the daughter of the siren queen. ~ Tricia Levenseller

Conservatives must avoid the siren song of schism, or all is lost. ~ John Podhoretz

Surely we have a responsibility to finally listen to - and honor - the siren calls of our souls, which have been silenced by our egos throughout our lives? How else can we connect with our essence, the source of our calling? ~ Lance Secretan

If we rebuild our communities and begin to derive more meaning and a sense of the good life from them, many of us are going to be less susceptible to the siren song of mindless consumerism (and while we're at it, we might even spend less time producing and editing our personal brands on social media). ~ Naomi Klein

A bird once sent out its mating call and in return got the siren of an ambulance. ~ Jarod Kintz

the siren song/called silence ~ Steven Erikson

Some accidental frequency in the siren had lit a gene like a flare in their rib cages, freeing them - for what greater freedom could there be than to forget your home? ~ Andrew Sean Greer

Stay away from the underground lake I implore,
The Siren will see you are heard of no more. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

They had met one another, at first not very often, throughout the heady autumn of the first London air raids. Never had a season been more felt; one bought the poetic sense of it with the sense of death. Out of mists of morning charred by the smoke from ruins each day rose to a height of unmisty glitter; between the last of sunset and first note of the siren the darkening glassy tenseness of evening was drawn fine. From the moment of waking you tasted the sweet autumn not less because of an acridity on the tongue and nostrils; and as the singed dust settled and smoke diluted you felt more and more called upon to observe daytime as a pure and curious holiday from fear. All through London the ropings-off of dangerous tracts of streets made islands of exalted if stricken silence, and people crowded against the ropes to admire the sunny emptiness on the other side. The diversion of traffic out of blocked main thoroughfares into byways, the unstopping phatasmagoric streaming of lorries, buses, vans, drays, taxis past modest windows and quiet doorways set up an overpowering sense of London's organic power – somewhere there was a source from which heavy motion boiled, surged and, not to be damned up, force itself into new channels. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

To the Nightingale


On what secret night in England

Or by the incalculable constant Rhine,

Lost among all the nights of my nights,

Carried to my unknowing ear

Your voice, burdened with mythology,

Nightingale of Virgil, of the Persians?

Perhaps I never heard you, yet my life

I bound to your life, inseparably.

A wandering spirit is your symbol

In a book of enigmas. El Marino

Named you the siren of the woods

And you sing through Juliet's night

And in the intricate Latin pages

And from the pine-trees of that other,

Nightingale of Germany and Judea,

Heine, mocking, burning, mourning.

Keats heard you for all, everywhere.

There's not one of the bright names

The people of the earth have given you

That does not yearn to match your music,

Nightingale of shadows. The Muslim

Dreamed you drunk with ecstasy

His breast trans-pierced by the thorn

Of the sung rose that you redden

With your last blood. Assiduously

I plot these lines in twilight emptiness,

Nightingale of the shores and seas,

Who in exaltation, memory and fable

Burn with love and die melodiously. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

The siren that is this city speaks to us insistently even after we've moved away. She belongs to us, truly, and to each in a different way. Paris nous appartient. ~ Veronique Vienne

Imagine what it's like to be (untouchable)
Better not take a chance on me (untouchable)
I'm the bad boy your mama told you about
I'm dangerous, without a doubt
Even coming off a ten-year drought
Untouchable

I'm the rose with hidden thorns (untouchable)
Don't tell me that you haven't been warned (untouchable)
I'm pretty poison under the skin,
The bite of the apple that's a mortal sin
In a game of love you'll never win
Untouchable

My reputation's fairly earned (untouchable)
If you play with fire, you will get burned (untouchable)
Stay out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat,
My kisses are deadly as they are sweet,
I'm a runaway bus on a dead-end street
Untouchable

Fools rush in, that's what they say(untouchable)
But angels fall, too, most every day (untouchable)
I'm the snake in the garden, the siren on the reef
I have the face of a saint and the heart of a thief
I'll promise you love! And bring you nothing but grief
Untouchable

Hearing Jonah sing like this was like watching him slice himself open and show off his insides. Why would he do that? Why would be write such a song?
And then Emma answered her own question. Because good music always tells the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Emma couldn't be the only one who felt the bite of the blade, but everyone else seemed to take it in stride. Did they know? Did ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Her green eyes shone when i asked questions and she gave me the siren smile each time i clued in. That smile only made me want to learn more. ~ Katie McGarry

Slowly rising from the fire, she went down to the shore, and not wanting to frighten him off again, she squatted on a rock above the water, looking down at him where he sat on the wet sand with his long blue-green tail disappearing into the lapping waves. He shyly offered the bag up to her, which had been woven of seaweed, and she took it with a whispered thanks and opened it, staring in delight and surprise at the sheer amount of oysters that were inside.
The siren made a trilling noise and whispered, "I-I hope it is well enough. I do not know what land women eat. ~ Ash Gray

I'm still trying to find the words to heal you,
To take your pain and make it all my own
So your beautiful eyes can smile,
So you can be at peace.
And now that Fate has intervened,
Conspired to draw us together,
I can't resist the lure of your eyes,
The temptation of you beauty,
The siren song of you voice
Whispering my name
In the dark comfort between my sheets.
I can't resist you, baby,
Because I'm falling still,
I'm falling into you. ~ Jasinda Wilder

And may you live to see it,' said Fermin, as he signalled to the siren from Calle Escudillers to start displaying her wares.
I saw her caress the old man with infinite delicacy,
kissing the tears that fell down his cheeks. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

According to Crittenden, young women today are deeply unhappy and confused because they ignored the siren song of the new momism and instead followed the really bad advice of their feminist mothers, who allegedly told their girls to forget marriage and motherhood. Instead, feminist mothers supposedly insisted that happiness only comes to those who climb the corporate ladder by impaling men's balls on their Ferragamo heels. (We are both card-carrying members of the feminist axis of evil, and we know of no mothers of twenty- and thirty-something daughters who have said, "Honey, I definitely do not want grandchildren. I want you to get that promotion and work seventy hours a week instead of sixty." Having heeded their feminist mothers' advice, these loser young women have "postponed marriage and childbirth to pursue their careers only to find themselves at thirty-five still single and baby-crazy, with no husband in sight." (No mention of the fact that once you remove the 10 percent of guys who are gay, and the other 30 percent who are snorting wasabi till they puke because they saw it on Jackass, the pickings can be slim.) ~ Susan J. Douglas

Well, then
our course is chosen
spread the sail
Heave oft the lead, and mark the soundings well
Look to the helm, good master
many a shoal
Marks this stern coast, and rocks, where sits the Siren
Who, like ambition, lures men to their ruin. ~ Walter Scott

Listening to the siren song of more, we are deaf to the still small voice waiting in our soul to whisper, 'You're enough. ~ Julia Cameron

I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudoscience and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive. Where have we heard it before? Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us - then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.
The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir. ~ Carl Sagan

I will be the first. As of tonight, I renounce my citizenship in the United Nations, and my allegiance to the Shelter state. From now on I will be a citizen--a citizen of no country but that bounded by the limits of my own mind. I do not know what those limits are, and I may never find out, but I shall devote my life to searching for them, in whatever manner seems good to me, and in no other manner whatsoever.
You must do the same. Tear up your registration cards. If you are asked your serial number, tell them you never had one. Never fill in another form. Stay above ground when the siren sounds. Stake out plots; grow crops; abandon the corridors. Do not commit any violence; simply refuse to obey. Nobody has the. right to compel you, as non-citizens. Passivity is the key. Renounce, resist, deny! ~ James Blish

A writer should remember that about his muse there is a great deal of the Siren. He should view his mental offspring as relentlessly as a Spartan father - if it is not perfectly sound, let it be cast out. ~ F.L. Lucas

Morrie might have died without ever seeing me again. I had no good excuse for this, except the one that everyone these days seems to have. I had become too wrapped up in the siren song of my own life. I was busy. ~ Mitch Albom

Tell me about your project." "It's a surprise," I said loudly over the siren. "I don't like surprises." No surprise there. ~ Jennifer Echols

It was the first time that I entered the house on the lake. I had often begged the "trap-door lover," as we used to call Erik in my country, to open its mysterious doors to me. He always refused. I made very many attempts, but in vain, to obtain admittance. Watch him as I might, after I first learned that he had taken up his permanent abode at the Opera, the darkness was always too thick to enable me to see how he worked the door in the wall on the lake. One day, when I thought myself alone, I stepped into the boat and rowed toward that part of the wall through which I had seen Erik disappear. It was then that I came into contact with the siren who guarded the approach and whose charm was very nearly fatal to me.

I had no sooner put off from the bank than the silence amid which I floated on the water was disturbed by a sort of whispered singing that hovered all around me. It was half breath, half music; it rose softly from the waters of the lake; and I was surrounded by it through I knew not what artifice. It followed me, moved with me and was so soft that it did not alarm me. On the contrary, in my longing to approach the source of that sweet and enticing harmony, I leaned out of my little boat over the water, for there was no doubt in my mind that the singing came from the water itself. By this time, I was alone in the boat in the middle of the lake; the voice - for it was now distinctly a voice - was beside me, on the water. I leaned over, leaned still farther. ~ Gaston Leroux

The desire for reinvention seems to arise most often when companies hear the siren call of synergy and start to expand beyond their core businesses. ~ James Surowiecki

There was always a second before the siren started when she was aware of a sound as yet unheard. It was like an echo, or rather the opposite of an echo. An echo came afterwards, but was there a word for what came before? ~ Kate Atkinson

To translate man back into nature, to become master over the many vain and overly enthusiastic interpretations and connotations that have so far been scrawled and painted over that eternal basic text of homo natura; to see to it that the human being henceforth stands before human beings as even today, hardened in the discipline of science, he stands before the rest of nature, with intrepid Oedipus eyes and sealed Odysseus ears, deaf to the siren songs of old metaphysical bird catchers who have been piping at him all too long, "you are more, you are higher, you are of a different origin" - that may be a strange and insane task, but it is a task - who would deny that? ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

And at the end of the night, he stared down at her in puzzlement. He didn't know which facet of her he liked better. The siren in black satin that made his cock and fangs ache or this angel with her bright red hair spread across his pillow - who made his chest ache. She ~ Kresley Cole

There is a siren that sounds in our small town to announce the curfew. At noon and at 10 p.m. Every time the siren sounds all the sled dogs howl, and I imagine that they think there is a large, loud god dog that rules the land howling. I equate this with religion. A short-sighted and desperate attempt for humans to create reason and order in a universe we can't possibly comprehend. The simple truth is that we are simply an expression of the energy of the sun. We are the glorious manifestation of the power of the universe. ~ Tanya Tagaq

Pseudoscience is almost always recognizable from a distance, and easy to confirm on close examination. Science is, however, not immune from hubris, and bad science can be tougher to spot. Those of us who make a living from science or science media must display scientific integrity. We must constantly test our assumptions and fight the siren song of consensus when our data tells us to be contrarian. We must remain independent of political or religious bias in evaluating our work. We must admit when we are wrong, and remain willing to evolve when verifiable data demands change. We must admit when we are uncertain, remain humble in advances, and offer courageous and independent advice grounded in science. ~ K. Lee Lerner

COLORED LIGHTS FROM BLAZE'S truck streaked through the night and the sound of the siren pierced the air. I couldn't help wondering if stealth on our part might have been a better way to go. Why does law enforcement always have to warn the world they are coming? Doesn't that give the bad guys time to pack up and mosey out? ~ Deb Baker

The siren song of redistribution of wealth by centralized government never ceases for those who seek irreversible and unusurpable control over the lives and liberties of private citizens. ~ Josh Jones

The siren south is well enough, but New York, at the beginning of March, is a hoyden we would not care to miss
a drafty wench, her temperature up and down, full of bold promises and dust in the eye. ~ E.B. White

I told you; I am Arianna, the Siren, your Guardian, and how is a Guardian supposed to do her job if she is clueless about the Guardianee? ~ Erica Sehyun Song

I had never seen a more flawless specimen than this wild looking siren. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

Part of me felt like I was throwing my life away, for a guy I barely knew. But I wasn't just doing it for him. Since my parents died, I'd had absolutely no control over my life. If I really thought about it, maybe I'd given up control long before - that day in Oregon when I almost drowned. Since then, I'd always relied on others to take care of me. Maybe it was time to take my life back into my own hands… even if it meant growing fins. ~ D.S. Murphy

This stupidity of sounding a siren and speeding through traffic with a coffin must be an African speciality. ~ Nana Awere Damoah

A pang of guilt, like a blaring siren, should never be ignored. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Pleasure was a siren, luring her to experience more ~ Linda Howard

He had stirred my emotion and fractured my resistance, but I carried an unbreakable love. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

She swore vengeance on all men with dark hearts. ~ Lisa Papademetriou

That destructive siren, sloth, is ever to be avoided. ~ Horace

His own personal siren nightmare. What else could it be when his body only sparked alive when it was her.

She made his lungs work, his heart beat.

It was a goddamn disease is what it was. ~ V. Theia

My rhyming skills got you climbing hills, I'll travel through your mind into your spine like siren drills. ~ Eminem

Nobody catches you if you fall. ~ Siren Waroe

Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy. ~ John C. Bogle

Fred would walk across broken glass for Siren. ~ C.S. Woolley

I did not tremble when his eyes met mine. One can only shudder in fear for so long until all trepidation is replaced by unearthly bravery. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

I often do crazy siren noises, or, like, a high-pitched dolphin, just to make sure that all my range is there. I make random noise and blurt out random sounds, to make sure I get rid of any bad nerves. I want to make sure to feel as confident as possible. ~ Ella Henderson

His love had given me life, and my love for him would be my last profession. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

Italy's siren call lures us more and more. ~ Frances Mayes

My siren became a temptress with that seductive smile on her lips. ~ Katie McGarry

A hand closed over my wrist. I looked over, and there was Lilly, cast in moonlight and blue, hair snaking around her, a siren calling to me: 'come on. ~ Kevin Emerson

That was what he'd made of her. A siren. A mermaid, and only when he dragged her under would she finally be able to breathe. ~ Pepper Winters

My siren had sung to me for way too long, capturing my heart, tempting me with her body, driving me slowly insane. Now, I expected her to pay up. ~ Katie McGarry

I'm a praying atheist. When I hear an ambulance siren, I ask for a blessing for those people in trouble, knowing that no one's listening. I think it's just a habit of mindfulness. ~ Geraldine Brooks

You're like a siren, leading me into dangerous places ~ Maggie Stiefvater

You're a gorgeous siren who could lure anybody into your arms. But I must go before I deliciously fall under your spell. ~ Rebekkah Ford

Hey, it's totally masculine. It's cowboy butt sex. ~ Sophie Oak

That life is far too short to waste on grudges. Love does not come along often. When it does, you can't throw it away because it isn't perfect. ~ Sophie Oak

Closure is a false harmony, a siren song masquerading as a swan song. ~ Timothy Snyder

Three guys and a girl were leaning against a black raised pickup ... I had to do a double take as this group was nothing like I had ever seen before. ~ Meredith T. Taylor

She seemed exotic and strange, a mysterious siren with devilish companions and spell-caught whorls that gleamed alluringly all over her pearl skin. ~ Maggie L. Wood

My faith, inasmuch as I have any, is more like a kind of Joseph Campbell thing, and even that frequently finds itself tested to oblivion in siren waters. ~ David Knopfler

She's a veritable siren, if you don't mind a grumpy woman who enjoys wielding a knife with alarming skill. ~ Grace Burrowes

Siren voices tell me, 'You don't have to keep going on.' And then you think, 'I'm a writer. What do I do? Sit there watching my wife clean up?' I don't know. I like being a writer. ~ Terry Pratchett

Each artwork requires its own design ~ Siren Waroe